


you came searching for a rock to build your home upon

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 19:09:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13301355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: There is a monster in the cage. PT’s monster. Blood everywhere and Rachel finds the part of her heart that could hate that thing and feeds it, and feeds it, and hates. “And it came crawling home after all,” she says.“He did,” PT says. “He had no idea what to do without his cage.”





	you came searching for a rock to build your home upon

There’s music coming from the basement. Rachel pauses on her way out the door, lets her bag roll to a stop in the hallway. Down in the basement there is music. Cosima and Delphine – upstairs. Susan and Ira – hiding in a back room, cowering away from the shattering of glass. PT—

Rachel’s heart starts up again with the frantic potential of it. She keeps being an idiot for this; she wishes that she wouldn’t, but she lets go of her suitcase’s handle anyways and takes the staircase down into the basement.

PT Westmorland is slumped in a chair, staring into a patch of shadows Rachel can’t decipher. “Have you come to tell me you’ve solved the puzzle?” he says, without opening his eyes. “Why one gene?”

“It’s me,” Rachel says quietly. PT opens his eyes. “Ah,” he says. “Weren’t you supposed to be headed to the mainland?”

“I heard glass shattering,” Rachel says, stepping closer. “I was worried—”

There is a monster in the cage. PT’s monster. Blood everywhere and Rachel finds the part of her heart that could hate that thing and feeds it, and feeds it, and hates. “And it came crawling home after all,” she says.

“He did,” PT says. “He had no idea what to do without his cage.” Against the wall the monster gibbers, tries to put the cuff back on its wrist. PT won’t look at Rachel, and that’s when Rachel realizes that this is a test. Of course it’s a test. He keeps setting her tests and she keeps passing them, flawless, so this is a test. She steps forward between PT and the cage. The thing inside whines at her, pathetic and wrong. Not even a person.

“Well?” she says. “Are you going to put it down?”

“You are always so _insistent_ on the guillotine,” PT says, voice dark with what might be alcohol and what might be exhaustion – she can’t tell – it makes her nervous anyways. She hates being nervous. She hates having her back to him; she stays precisely where she is, to spite that fear.

(Fear?)

(Fear.)

“Your mother said I overvalued ruthlessness,” PT says behind her. “I do wonder, sometimes, if she was right.”

“Ruthlessness gets results,” Rachel says without turning around. She folds her hands in front of her – not to pick at her skin, just to press her thumb against her thumb and know that she _could_ and she won’t. The basement is silent but for the music; she amends. “When tempered with mercy.”

“Yes,” PT says. “You have shown a delicate hand with Kira – and Sarah Manning, which is impressive. Quite the sharp-toothed little vixen, isn’t she.”

“Are you going to leave it?” Rachel says, ducking out under the weight of that possible conversation. Instead she watches the monster stare at her and whine. “I can’t imagine what use it has.”

“Come here.”

Rachel follows orders. When she is standing close enough to PT that her shadow covers him, he reaches down to the chair he’s sitting in and pulls out – from somewhere – a gun. A little silver pistol that he lets dangle lazily off one finger. “Well?” he says.

Rachel takes the gun. She was right: it’s a test. That’s fine. She euthanized Miriam. She shot at Sarah – surely she was shooting to kill. She can tie up PT’s loose ends. She can be the knife that cuts those loose ends away. She checks the chamber, finds three bullets in it.

“Are you going to shoot him?” PT says.

Rachel cocks the gun. “I’m hardly going to bludgeon it to death,” she says.

“ _Him_ ,” PT says. “His name is Yannis. He was a child, once. My own mistakes changed him into a monster, but he was a child just like you. He can feel. He—”

Rachel pulls the trigger. Yannis is a name for a person, but it isn’t a name for a body; once again the thing in the cage is nameless. She holds out the gun back to PT.

He doesn’t take it. “I see,” he says, and the word _failure_ slaps into Rachel’s ribcage like a whip cutting through bone. She tries not to appear visibly rattled by it. She continues to hold out the gun. “I’ll miss my helicopter,” she says, which is very different from the words _be proud of me_.

“Yes,” PT says, “I suppose you will.” He takes the gun. “A quick decision. I assume you thought through all the consequences?”

_What consequences,_ Rachel thinks, at first scathing and then frantic. _What consequences?_

“Of course,” she says, and he grabs the gun by the barrel and tugs it out of her hands. They do not touch each other. In a dark warm space in the back of her brain Rachel has locked away the memory of this man saying _I consider you my daughter_ and holding her. Since she has locked it away, she isn’t thinking about it.

“Then,” PT says, and tilts up part of his mouth in an almost smile. “Well done.”

It shakes Rachel’s chest with electric light; she hates it; she wants to grab him by the shoulders and claw for more of it; she hates that too. She keeps her eyes latched onto the smile until it leaves her, and then she says: “Shall I tell the messenger that the body should be disposed of?”

PT closes his eyes. “Leave it,” he says, and he doesn’t say anything else.

“Alright.”

Scraps of light chase each other around Rachel’s rib cage, but the thrill of the praise is already gone. She wishes there had been more to it, that monster. She wishes there had been two hundred and seventy-three other monsters, and she could shoot each of them, and every single time PT would smile just a little bit and say _well done, well done, well done_.

“Rachel,” he says when she’s partway up the stairs. (Rachel. He says Rachel, Rachel.)

“Yes.”

“What do you think Cosima would have done.”

Rachel digs her fingernails into the wood of the staircase. “Cosima isn’t here,” she says.

“Yes,” PT says, voice low and simmering furious. “I am _aware_ she isn’t here. What do you think she would have _done_. You know the project. You know the subjects. What would Cosima have done?”

Rachel turns around, slowly, watches the wall. From the corner of her eye she can see the blurred shape of PT. “She wouldn’t have pulled the trigger,” she says in a voice that is much smaller than it should be. Before him she hadn’t even known her voice could be this small, but it can. It can shrink until she’s nothing but a mouse again.

“No,” PT says, “I suppose she wouldn’t have.” He turns the gun over and over in his hands. Rachel stands very still and watches the barrel, waits for it.

“Well?” PT says. “Don’t you have a helicopter? Wasn’t your concern that you’d miss it? Isn’t that why you’ve done all of this?”

“That wasn’t why,” Rachel says, but he isn’t looking at her and he isn’t looking at her. Rachel isn’t looking at the monster, and PT isn’t looking at her.

“Good _night_ , Rachel,” PT says.

“Good night,” Rachel says, and takes the staircase back towards the house. By the time she reaches the door, the music has stopped.

**Author's Note:**

> You came searching for a rock  
> That you could build your home upon
> 
> But I'm a rolling stone  
> I'm a, I'm a rolling stone  
> And what you need the most  
> What you, what you need the most  
> Is what I have the least  
> \--"War Paint," Stalking Gia
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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